


Your Love is Sunlight

by youlostpleiad



Series: Tell Me All The Ways To Love you [1]
Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Fluff, M/M, and important conversations, that's what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youlostpleiad/pseuds/youlostpleiad
Summary: Alex and Henry discuss some very important plans for the future
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Series: Tell Me All The Ways To Love you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686073
Comments: 41
Kudos: 240





	Your Love is Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> This barely has a plot I just keep thinking about what they would do in these situations so I wrote it!  
> Celebrity Bake Off, officially called The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up to Cancer, is exactly what it sounds like, 4 celebrities do one episode of bake off for charity and then there's different celebrities the following week, it's a mess, it's great.  
> The title is from Hozier's Sunlight

"I can hear you thinking," Alex says. They’re lying in bed, Alex on his back and Henry with his head on his chest, and Alex is running his fingers through that soft blonde hair he used to dream about touching. It’s good. They’ve got Bake Off playing on the tv, but they’re only half watching it. Alex because he keeps drifting off, looking at the top of Henry’s head on his chest and smiling, looking at the end of the bed to see Henry’s feet far closer to the edge than his own, because he’s a giant. Mind you, 5’9’’ is average and Alex is an appropriately sized human who takes great pleasure in the fact that his gigantic boyfriend has to scoot down the bed to cuddle up to him. But Henry keeps staring at the wall and it makes no sense. It’s Celebrity Bake Off, none of them have any clue what they’re meant to be doing, it’s hilarious and he’s not even laughing. “Henry,” he tries again, “baby, sweetheart.”

Henry presses his face to Alex’s chest and groans before looking up, “You’re insufferable, and that really should not work on me still,” he sits up and holds out his hand to Alex and pulls him up.

“Hey, whatever it is you can tell me, okay?” he asks, pressing his forehead to Henry’s, “I can take it. Unless you’re breaking up with me, then I’m gonna scream and cry. A lot. A lot a lot.”

“Don’t joke about that, I love you.”

“I know, dumbass,” he puts his hand on the back on Henry’s neck and pulls him closer. Places a soft, quick kiss to his lips, “I love you too. That’s why you can tell me whatever is going on in that thick head of yours.”

“I was thinking about,” he starts and then lowers his head and mumbles a bunch of words Alex can’t for the life of him understand.

“Henry.”

“Ugh. Fine. Okay. Je pensais à t'épouser,” he says and then looks at Alex with a satisfied smile. Alex is going to kill him.

“I am going to kill you,” he says and smiles, “You can’t french your way out of this.”

Henry smiles again, looking like someone who is absolutely not going to stop speaking french, “Mais pourquoi? Je sais que tu aimes quand je parle français.”

“I’m gonna start speaking spanish soon. I don’t care how hot french is, si yo no te comprendo, tu no me comprendes, sweetheart, is that what you want?”

“Maybe it is, you’re extra fit when you speak spanish, love.” 

Alex doesn’t reply, he just fixes Henry with a stare that he hopes says _start talking, pretty boy_. 

“Okay, the truth is - don’t laugh at me - you know last week when we had to go to that senator’s wedding?” He fixes his eyes on Alex’s, and Alex nods, “Well it got me thinking. About marriage. About marrying you,” this time he’s not meeting Alex’s gaze. Almost like he’s ashamed of what he just said. 

“Did you just propose to me?” Alex says, and he thinks his face is maybe showing a little too much glee. 

“NO. No. I am not proposing,” Henry says almost frantically and Alex’s face falls and he lets out a small and sad sounding _oh_. “Oh god, I’m rubbish at this. I want to marry you. So much, love, more than anything, you have to know that.”

And Alex does. After everything they’ve been through he does. And he tells Henry as much. He’s just confused about where this conversation is headed if not a proposal.

Henry takes a deep breath before he starts talking, “Right, let’s start over. What I mean to say, is that I’ve been thinking about us getting married and if there’s any way we can do that without either one of us compromising who we are.”

And then he keeps talking. He tells Alex about how he dreamt, his whole life, to live in a world where he could stand at an altar with a man he loved and how he never thought he would be allowed until he met Alex. And Alex knows this, he’s known it for a while but it breaks his heart all the same. Henry tells him how he knows Alex would be a terrible royal and that’s okay. That’s a good thing because they’re not allowed to have political views and certainly not allowed to be members of the US Senate, and they can’t stand up for what they believe in and that would destroy Alex, and Henry doesn’t want that. Henry wants Alex to keep fighting for what he believes in, to keep fighting for what’s good and what’s right because “you’re going to take this world and make it better, love, so much better. That’s what you’re meant to do” and Alex’s heart could burst from how much faith in him Henry has. And he keeps going. He talks about how he never even let himself imagine what it would be like to be a father because he knew the only way he’d get that kind of a family was with a woman, and it broke him to think of it. And then Alex went and opened his mouth, his stupid “we can still do that” and Henry felt something bloom in his chest at the thought of having his own children, but then he thinks of his grandmother and how even though she’s practically retired in all ways but the literal, she would make it impossible for them to adopt a child. And Henry doesn’t care about genetics, he doesn’t. He just knows that he found out just how much love he has in him, and there’s so much much of it, so much. Enough for Alex, Pez, Bea, June, Nora, his mother, Alex’s mother, Shaan, Zarah, Oscar, Leo, Cash, Amy, Luna, hell even enough for Philip. And even after all that, he has a lot left. But he knows that as a prince trying to adopt a child with his boyfriend, with his husband, as much weight as his will would carry the Queen’s word would be heavier. And Henry knows his country, he loves it, but he knows how ruthless its media can be, he knows that the second they had a child that was biologically his and not Alex’s they would make it in a spectacle. A thousand articles would be written, the kid would grow up having reporters yell nonsense about Alex at them just to get a reaction, just so some photographer could get a photo of an angry innocent child trying to defend their dad. They’d spin it into some kind of Shakesperian tragedy, make a profit off of their fabricated misery and he doesn’t want that. 

But he does want Alex. He does want a family. And he wants it all on his own terms. He wants Alex righteous and lawful and a beautiful unmitigated dumbass, exactly the way he met him. He wants to grow old with him and call him his husband and be right next to him as he grows and changes and becomes even better. He wants to adopt a child or ten and watch them grow, and teach them that they can love anyone and everyone they want, that they can change the world if that’s what they set out to do, he wants to love them as much as he can and be at least half as good a father to them as his father was to him. And after everything, after all of this, he thinks he deserves it. 

“You do deserve it,” Alex says with a knot in his throat. He pulls Henry close and kisses him, soft and slow, and maybe he feels a tear fall down his face but that’s none of anyone’s business, “you deserve all that and more.”

Henry presses his face to the place Alex’s neck meets his shoulder, “I want to write a book, do you think I could write a book?” he asks, his breath warm on Alex’s skin. 

“I think you _should_ write a book. I think you should write _all_ the books, Mr ‘should I tell you that’,” and he doesn’t get to finish because Henry’s pushing him down on the bed and kissing him hard. When he pulls away he’s smiling, big and beautiful and Alex loves him so fucking much.

“You’re an idiot, do you know?”

“Hey, you’re the one who wants to marry me and have a dozen kids with me!”

“Well, I have been described as obtuse.” 

Alex bursts out laughing and then so does Henry, and it’s good. 

“I think I’m going to abdicate,” Henry almost whispers after a few seconds, “There’s mum and Philip, and he has children now. And you know Bea should have been ahead of me anyway, she’s older, so if I do abdicate she can have her rightful place behind Philip and his heirs. And we get to have each other, exactly the way we are, without compromising for anyone else. Mum will back me up, and we won’t tell gran until it’s too late for her to do anything about it.” 

“Are you sure about this?” Alex asks.

Henry pushes a curl behind Alex’s ear and says, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, love.”

“Okay. Okay,” he says and he sits up and pulls Henry with him. He waits for him to meet his eyes before he says, “Oh you are going to have the most fucked up name. Henry George Edward James Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor-Claremont-Diaz, maybe Claremont-Diaz-Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor.”

“That’s what you’re thinking about? Really?”

“Well, yeah. Five last names is a lot, even with hyphens! And I’m getting it too! And we’re giving it to some poor innocent children! We have to figure this out!”

“You’re an idiot, Alexander.”

“Oof, you full named me, that’s harsh.”

“My point is all this talk made us miss Bake Off, you heathen. We can figure out last names tomorrow! Or when I romance the shit out of you when I propose. Now we’re watching Paul Hollywood taste some truly disgusting bakes and have to be nice about it because it’s for charity!”

“Hey, why can’t I propose?”

“Alex, love, I’m stepping down as Prince of Wales, but I very much intend to carry on being ‘prince fucking charming’. A very handsome man gave me that title once, and I will honour it.”

“Well, he sounds like a catch,” Alex says with a smile, “But I still want to propose.”

Henry doesn’t even reply, he just reaches for the remote and restarts the episode and snuggles back into Alex’s chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact Princess Charlotte was the first Royal not to be ruled out by gender, which means that she comes before her brother Louis in the line to the throne, Bea and Henry, being born in the 90's probably would not have followed this new rule, so even though she's older she would have been behind Henry in the line simply because she's a woman, which is dumb, especially for a country with a Queen, but whatever  
> Also, the french phrases were "I was thinking of marrying you" and "why? I know you love it when I speak french" and the spanish one was "if I don't understand you, you don't understand me"


End file.
